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Replacing IDE CD-RW drives? (on a CCTV DVR)

Mel

0
Ok, I know I really should look for a CCTV forum, but I figured it would be worth asking the computer hardware experts here :)

I occasionally get asked to sort out one or other of a couple of CCTV systems for a local club, and while fixing another issue, noticed that the draws of both recorder's CDRW drives, which are used to copy footage from the hard drives in the event of an incident, won't eject without help from a paper clip: almost certainly caused by the cooling fan drawing dust into the mechanism through the drive - I've had problems with dust stopping them recording before.

I guess they might start working if I blast compressed air at them, but I need to fit a second IDE hard drive in one of the boxes, so figured it wouldn't cost much to buy a brand new cd burner and fit it at the same time. However, I've checked most of the computer hardware suppliers I normally use and perhaps unsurprisingly they only seem to stock DVD burners these days.

Can anyone suggest a reliable supplier that still sells burnproof IDE CDRW drives, or will I have to resort to Ebay, or second hand units?

Alternatively, might a DVD burner be seen as a CD burner by the firmware (which only writes to CDRs) -I'm none to sure that the firmware will even be compatible with many other models of CD burner.
 
l personally dont think there would be an issue, might even writer dvds if the right drive was in there, your best bet tho would be to find out what model system they use.. surely someone online may have posted info or it could be on their main site for drive comparability, still the kick in the teeth here is l threw a working one out a couple of weeks back that l would have happily sent your way.
 
Ideally I want to get a new burner, so if I'm unable to get the old one working reliably I can buy a second identical one and maybe even a spare once I've confirmed it works ok, as I gather some DVRs can be a wee bit fussy about their drives. I'm tempted to buy a DVD writer on the off chance it might work in the box, if they are compatible I'll at least know I can easily source another one next time it gets jammed up by dust, although I'm pretty certain it won't record other than onto a CD-R, .

So far I haven't found any useful posts on the net about drive compatibility, and the manufacturer's site isn't overly helpful - the instructions aren't entirely accurate either, and the company that installed the systems folded not long after they were paid for them.

I've previously found a few other companies selling DVRs based on the same underlying hardware, but most of them came with a removable hard drive rather than a CD burner, probably because its not that practical (the unit can't record while burning a CD, only fits something like 12 minutes on a CD and only records at playback speed, so it takes about 15 minutes to record each CD :rolleyes:).

I'm going to try emailing the manufacturer, as I'm hoping that the recent year 2010 firmware fix might also have included support for 500 Gig hard disks - as it uses over 100 Gig a day at a useful frame rate.
 
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